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Originally Posted by Crash ©
Go down to your local exhaust shop and have then bend a pipe to fit..
A little brainstorming on how to make some mounts.. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking some 2 inch L peices about 6 - 12 inches long.. Drill through the tube horizontally in a place or two and bolt em to the L high enough to keep the pipe from laying on the roof Then bolt the L to the holes in the plastic roof rails..
FWIW.. I'd make the tube long enough to go all the way back to the rails, pop a small hole in the plastic trim UNDER that clip off cap, route the wires through some wire loom and up into the ent pipe to hide them out well.. Run the ground side of the lights out the other side of the pipe and ground to the nearest torx head bolt... Drill holes for the lights and wires (USE RUBBER GROMETS for the wire accesses)...
Maybe $50 in parts and 3 hours of labor including time to gather the parts together.. Actually it's prolly a full day project from start to finish...
Kinda makes that $433.35 seem like a fair price huh..?? (Price does not include the lights or the installation; or else I'm reading something wrong.)
I just installed 6 lights on my truck.. 2 on the front, 4 on the top rack.. Found some cheap lights on Ebay.. $120 for eight 130 watt lamps.. I was out another $100 for the misc nuts, bolts, brackets, switches, paint and wire to set and hook them up the way I wanted.. I've got an EASY 30 hours of labor into the job.. And that certainly makes the $600 that 4 Wheel Parts wanted to do the job look a lot less expensive.. But I know they are done RIGHT with the right wire sizes and all joints soldered and heat shrinked..
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Some great ideas. As for a mount, if you went back to the actual roof rail opening, this type of mount I use for my CB antennas would work, just make it a bit smaller and don't add in the large hole for the antenna stud.
Very easy to make...
As for the price I still say it is high for an item that is mass produced.
The mounts I made for the CB took less than a 1/2 hour to drill the holes and to paint. Cost for the brackets was under 20 bucks (would be around 40 if someone needed to purchase the tie down straps that came with my H3). Pay someone another $50.00 for the bar and the bending, then spend 5 bucks to paint. Ok, you now have about two hours of work (depending on where you have to drive to have the pipe bent, and the trip to the local store for the aluminum for the brackets). (Granted, if you lived out in the country, it might be costly on fuel to travel to locations to find the aluminum or steel or pipe, etc.)
The item that will require the greatest amount of time will be the installation of the lights to the bar, the running of the wires for each light through the bar, and the install of the unit. Then, you have to run the wires into the vehicle, connect relay(s) and switch(es).
I would say if the bar was priced around $250.00 it would be fair. Then again, it probably has what is known as the "Hummer Tax" (similar to a Corvette Tax). Basically anything made specifically for a Hummer costs more than something made for another vehicle.
Just my 0.2 on Hummer owner's being overcharged.